Ethics of Administration

Ethics

Cooper, Terry L. (2006). The responsible administrator. Jossey-Bass.

Public administration in modern and postmodern society: The context of administrative ethics

According to Chapter 3 of the responsible administrator by Terry L. Cooper, contemporary society has shifted from a modernist ideal of a melting pot to a more postmodern ethos. In postmodernity, the ways in which we structure administrative life are not viewed as absolute. Instead, bureaucracies must be responsive to ever-shifting social needs and an increasingly diverse society. Ethics are contextual, and are based upon the interplay of personal, cultural, and political influences.

The reader may at first be taken aback by a reference to 'postmodernity' in a book on administrative ethics. This term is often associated with critical theory, literature and culture, rather than 'real world' decision-making. However, the idea that ethics cannot be set in stone is essential to the thesis of the book. Administrators must adhere to protocols, but often these protocols may be in conflict, depending on the role of the agency and the different interest groups affected by the decision. The internal ethical scale of the administrator must weigh the pros and cons of different courses of action.

Postmodern ethics does not mean that 'everything is relative' and alleviate the ethical responsibilities of administrators. Rather, it means that bureaucrats must engage in soul-searching questions about what is meaningful and ethical about their actions. Postmodern ethics means that it is all the more incumbent upon individuals to engage in philosophical introspection, because no system of values is heaven-sent.

Creating a unique set of ethics for postmodern life is especially difficult because we all inhabit an increasingly diverse array of social spheres -- work and private life are often divided, and the culture of our birthplace may harbor a system of values quite distinct from that of our workplace. For example, someone may come from a culture where personal feelings and family are the predominant values, but work in an administrative agency where facts and data are given priority in decision-making, including decisions that affect family and educational policy. The administrator must strive to cognitively balance these two worlds: postmodernism stresses using these different personal roles in an integrative and positive fashion, while modernism denies such a bifurcation of consciousness, and posits that work and personal life must exist in separate spheres.

Bureaucratization and systematization of rules, during the modern era, was seen as the 'solution' to the problems of modern life. Progressivism advocated that everyone should be treated the 'same' regardless of race, creed, class, or ideology. But while this democratic ethos was certainly an improvement upon past conceptions of class-based privilege, sometimes treating everyone the same is not necessarily equitable. A good example of this is affirmative action -- failing to recognize the additional obstacles some individuals have overcome to achieve the same qualifications as others who have not come from historically-discriminated against groups would itself be an injustice.

Postmodernism is also a more open acknowledgment of the subjective biases of administrators. To come to terms with bias, it must be aired in the open, rather than concealed through a veneer of objective bureaucratization. Thus, the Weber model of the impersonal bureaucrat is, if not dead, than consigned to the past. An administrator is still a citizen, as conceived of by postmodernism, and still a human being. Taking into consideration one's humanity as well as reason and predetermined policies are required for effective government functioning. Ultimately, the obligation of the administrator should be to serve the wider public good, not serve an agency's advancement within existing political structures. If administrators ignore their roles, a sense of powerlessness in the hearts of common citizens is the result and all of society suffers.

Postmodern models have an additional value, even beyond analyzing personal conflicts: they help bring hidden administrative tensions to light, such as the jockeying for power between different agencies. The State Department, Defense Department, FBI, and CIA are all federal examples of how agencies can uncomfortably share similar responsibilities, and circumvent one another's purposes by failing to share information. Undue influence by interest groups such as labor organizations can also divert an agency's purposes. However, such citizen's interest groups, even 'special interests' such as the NAACP and the AFL-CIO cannot be done away with, given that they can play an important role as advocates of minority rights.

Chapter 4: Administrative responsibility: The key to administrative ethics

Administrators are responsible for complying with the law -- and also for complying with the administrative responsibilities. Ethics requires a delicate balancing of objective and subjective responsibilities on the part of administrators. All this is easier said than done, of course. The administrator's role is complicated by a network of often conflicting responsibilities -- responsibilities to his or her own ethics, to immediate superiors, to his or her specific agency, to elected officials who speak for the public, and to the public good (which may not always be fully articulated within the desires of public officials) Furthermore, the law is not always clear-cut but it must be an important cornerstone of administrative policies. Of course, when administrative policies are potentially conflict with the law, an immediate red flag should be raised.

If an administrator does not have the authority to resolve a problem personally in a satisfactory manner, he or she at very least should appeal to those people who do -- either to a superior or even to a subordinate with specialized skills. Many individuals may have specialized expertise and seeking out their input and giving them responsibility in a more flexible manner can act as an aid in organizational decision-making. Hierarchies must be occasionally transgressed. The best decisions are made with deep and full knowledge of all of the issues at hand, not simply by rote or polling the public.

An additional advantage conveyed by the existence of the civil service is the input of genuinely specialized knowledge from experts. For example, when fighting a public health epidemic or dealing with an environmental problem, members of the public and politicians may not fully understand AIDS or global warming to the same degree as an scientist. By having an scientist who is a civil servant and can set policy and goals, the entire public can benefit in the long run -- long after politicians making day-to-day legislative decisions are no longer in office. Thinking long-term can be encouraged through the input of administrative bureaucrats in decision-making, as these members of government agencies are not beholden to elections.

Unfortunately, not all administrative bureaucrats are able to be far-sighted and may place their own agency or personal interests above that of the greater good. A regulator of food safety for the FDA, for example, may not prioritize communicating with other departments that affect human health, such as agriculture and education, and focus only on narrow, technical concerns about setting guidelines for handling food. An administrator's attitude is thus as vitally important as his or her specific duties and knowledge. Integrity is an indefinable quality that cannot be easily written into law but must be infused into all decision-making. Integrity plays an important role in maximizing organizational effectiveness as well as compassion.